Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Joba Chamberlain is Different

There is no question that Joba is different this year. He's throwing hard. He's attacking hitters. He's confident. Working quickly. But what explains the sudden change in Joba? Simple: He's fat. Joba showed up to camp overweight, and he's pitched his @$$ off. In previous years Joba would show up to camp talking about how he was in the best shape of his life, then not pitch to expectation. Yankee brass assumed he was getting too comfortable. No. He was getting skinny. It turns out, Joba's a fat guy. He needs to be fat. Just let him be fat and he will pitch well. That's all it takes.

The Yankees have a rich tradition of fat pitchers going back to Babe Ruth. They gave the biggest pitching contract in history to a husky gentleman and were even willing to sign Sidney Ponson twice. They must have put Colon on the team as a kind of fatness mentor to Joba, as there's no other rational explanation.